Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering 2012, 5, 55-71 55

The Rake Receiver Principle: Past, Present and Future

Konstantinos B. Baltzis*

RadioCommunications Laboratory, Section of Applied and Environmental Physics, Department of Physics, Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

Received: September 12, 2011; Accepted: October 17, 2011; Revised: November 11, 2011

Abstract: In order to enhance the performance of wireless communication systems, we usually employ diversity combin-
ing techniques. Rake reception is a diversity method that gained popularity mainly due to its use in second and third gen-
eration mobile systems. This paper reviews important and recent advances in rake diversity and its applications in wireless
communications. First, we provide some theoretical background of rake reception focusing on the initial idea proposed in
the late 50's. Next, we present selected patent and scientific literature on rake receiver design. Recent patents, patent ap-
plications and scientific articles on the application of rake diversity in code division multiple access systems, ultra-
wideband communications and channel estimation are then discussed. Some more general applications of rake reception
in wireless communications are also examined. Future perspectives of rake diversity are finally explored.
Keywords: CDMA, channel estimation, diversity, rake, receiver, ultra-wideband, wireless communications.

A common way to mitigate the effects of multipath fad-

1. INTRODUCTION
Wireless communications have experienced an extreme
growth since the early 90's. Wireless systems have been in-
troduced in several areas of everyday life and provide serv-
ices that include a multimedia traffic mix of voice, data and
video each having different transfer requirements. Moreover,
high mobility and global connectivity are usually required.
With the rapid development of wireless networks, technolo-
gies and applications that demand large quantities of traffic
such as video conferencing, remote medical imaging, video
sharing, online documents storage and online gaming, also
emerged [1].
In wireless communications, the propagation medium
influences all system components ranging from modulation
and channel coding up to higher layer protocols. The radio
channel is susceptible to noise, interference and other im-
pediments that change stochastically in time. These impair-
ments comprise additive and multiplicative components. The
first arise from noise generated within the receiver 1 (thermal
and shot noise) and external sources (cosmic radiation, at-
mospheric effects, electrical appliances, etc.) while the sec-
ond from processes generated by propagating waves on their
way from the transmitter to the receiver [2]. Multiplicative
noise reduces system performance significantly and it is usu-
ally described by three partially separable effects, path loss,
shadowing and multipath fading.
*Address correspondence to this author at the RadioCommunications Labo-
ratory, Section of Applied and Environmental Physics, Department of Phys-
ics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece Tel: +30
2310 998285; Fax: +30 2310 998069; E-mail: kmpal@physics.auth.gr






























































1
Within this context, the term “receiver” refers to the reception unit that includes one
or more rake receivers, unless otherwise stated; the term “rake receiver” refers exclu-
sively to a rake receiver unit.
ing is through the use of diversity combining techniques, that
is, by sending the same data over independent paths which,
obviously, have a lower probability of experiencing deep
fades simultaneously [3]. In diversity reception, the received
signal samples fade in an uncorrelated manner. As a result,
the probability of all the samples being below a given
threshold level at the same time is much lower than the prob-
ability of any individual one to be below this level.
Among different diversity techniques such as frequency,
temporal, spatial, polarization, etc. diversity [3-7], a popular
method, especially in code division multiple access (CDMA)
communications, is rake diversity [8, 9]. Rake reception was
proposed about half a century ago [10, 11]. In general, the
method uses baseband correlators, also called fingers, to in-
dividually process multipath signal components that are
properly combined to improve the signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR) and reduce the probability of deep fades. In spread
spectrum systems, rake fingers collect resolvable signal mul-
tipaths. Then, the received signal components are suitably
combined after despreading by a local copy of the delayed
version of the transmitter’s spreading code [8, 9, 12]. The
name rake arises from the notion that this receiver resembles
a garden rake and rakes up the multipath energy on its fin-
gers.
This paper provides an overview of recent and important
developments in rake receivers and their application in wire-
less communications. Within this context, selected patents,
patent applications and scientific articles are presented.
Critical issues related to the design, implementation and op-
timization of rake receivers are thoroughly discussed. Spe-
cial care has been paid to the presentation of recent literature
on rake reception in CDMA and wideband CDMA
(WCDMA) systems due to the worldwide deployment of
these technologies in the second and, primarily, in the third
generation mobile systems (2G and 3G, respectively)

1874-4761/12 $100.00+.00 © 2012 Bentham Science Publishers

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Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1
[13,14]. In the last decade, ultra-wideband (UWB) commu-
nications have emerged as a promising technology for high-
speed short-range radio systems [15]. In these systems, the
extremely large signal bandwidth motivates the use of rake
schemes as long as signal multipaths can be finely resolved
at the receiver [16]. Representative applications of rake di-
versity in channel estimation are also examined. In this re-
view paper, we finally present methods and apparatuses that
employ rake reception in processes such as sequence detec-
tion, antenna tuning, signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) esti-
mation, baseband frequency error correction, etc.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2
provides a short historical background and discusses basic
principles of rake diversity. Next, in the main part of the
paper, we overview patents and scientific articles in rake
receiver design and the applications of rake reception in
wireless communications. A brief discussion on current and
future developments of rake diversity in modern communica-
tions completes this study.
2. RAKE DIVERSITY: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
AND FOUNDING PRINCIPLES
The conventional rake receiver as introduced by Price
and Green [10, 11], comprises a tapped delay line (TDL)
with L taps spaced at distances equal to the inverse of the
signal bandwidth W. In this structure, the TDL detects indi-
vidual signal multipaths and collects their energy that falls
within the span L/W. The detected signals are added after
weighting by a factor maximizing the total SNR. A simpli-
fied block diagram of the receiver is illustrated in Fig. (1)
where r(t) is the signal at the receiver front-end and Z is the
decision variable determined from the combination of the
fingers outputs xi, i=1,2..L.
In general, a rake receiver combats fading effects to
process the temporal diversity by using multipath signal re-
ception [17]. However, the separate detection, weighting and
recombination of signals that differ in their arrival time is
equivalent to doing the same thing in frequency allowing us
to consider rake reception as another form of frequency di-
versity [3].
Figure (2) depicts a typical postdetection rake diversity
combining receiver for L-fold diversity. In this figure
al ,
l , l = 1, 2..L are the attenuation factor and the phase shift
of the lth diversity channel and g l , l = 1, 2..L are the weight-
ing coefficient in each branch.
In the previous structure, the most important unit of a
rake receiver is the combiner. Several different strategies
(criteria) have been employed for its implementation and the
calculation of the decision variable. Among them, maximal
ratio combining (MRC), equal gain combining (EGC), selec-
tion combining (SC), generalized selection combining (GSC)
and the maximum likelihood (ML) criterion are the most
popular. In brief2, in maximal ratio combining [18], the
phases of each diversity signal are added together and made
equally coherent while their envelopes are weighted in pro-






























































2
The mathematical analysis of this issue is beyond the scope of the paper; an introduc-
tory but detailed analysis is provided in [8].
Konstantinos B. Baltzis
portion to the square roots of their SNRs. MRC gives the
maximum SNR under the assumption of independent finger
signals [19] but it is no longer an optimum criterion if we
consider the correlation between them [20] (in general, the
correlation between the desired signal components decreases
the diversity gain and the correlation between the total inter-
ference components decreases the total combined average
SIR). On the other hand, in equal gain combing [21], the
symbol decision statistics for each finger are summed with
equal gains. A different strategy is followed in selection
combining [22]. In this method, we demodulate the multi-
path component with the highest SNR and ignore the rest.
The improvement of this method, the generalized selection
combining, considers more than one multipath component
(again, the ones with the highest SNRs) [23]. The aforemen-
tioned criteria give adequate results and are commonly used
in structures with uniform finger distribution. However, in
structures with unequal finger spacing the calculation of the
decision variable with a combining rule based on the maxi-
mum likelihood criterion [24] usually provides better results
[12, 25-28].
In Price and Green’s proposal, fingers spacing equals to
the inverse of the signal bandwidth but in several rake re-
ceiver implementations the fingers are unequally spaced. In
fact, the relation between fingers positions and the correla-
tion coefficients of the rake combined signals [27] justify a
non-uniform finger distribution. Different implementations
of the correlators have also been proposed. For example, in
several direct sequence spread spectrum (DS/SS) systems,
each correlator is matched to the desired user’s spreading
sequence and performs a convolution between this sequence
and the finger signal [8]. A detailed discussion of these is-
sues follows in the next Section.
3. SELECTED PATENTS AND SCIENTIFIC ARTI-
CLES ON RAKE DIVERSITY
The increased popularity of spread spectrum technology
and the rapid development of 3G communication systems
have resulted in the publication of a vast amount of scientific
papers and patents on rake diversity and its applications.
However, to the best of the author’s knowledge, there are no
published articles that review patents on rake diversity. In
this paper, we focus on published patents and patent applica-
tions and study them as a measure of innovation.
This Section represents the author’s best attempt to iden-
tify significant and recent inventions on rake reception and
its application in wireless communication systems. Repre-
sentative patents and patent applications granted by the
United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) [29]
and the European Patent Office (EPO) [30] are included
herein. Selected articles in the scientific literature are also
referenced. In order to improve the clarity of the exposition,
we divide the Section into five parts. Subsection 3.1 dis-
cusses rake receiver design and presents important and re-
cent rake receiver implementations. In Subsection 3.2, we
highlight patents and patent applications related to rake di-
versity in spread spectrum communication systems. Next, we
discuss rake reception in ultra-wideband wireless communi-
cations. Subsection 3.4 reviews novel inventions and meth-
ods in radio channel estimation. A collection of miscellane-
The Rake Receiver Principle Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1 57

Fig. (1). The TDL rake receiver model.

g1
Diversity
channel 1
(a1,φ1)
g2
Diversity
channel 2
(a2,φ2)

Combiner

Transmitted gl Decision
Diversity
signal channel l Variable(s)
(al,φl)

gL
Diversity
channel L
(aL,φL)

Fig. (2). Postdetection diversity receiver model.

ous inventions completes our study. In each subsection, the
innovations are listed in a chronological order, unless other-
wise stated.
3.1. Practical Implementations of Rake Receivers
In the conventional DS/SS rake receiver, finger spacing
is set equal to the chip period. In general, when finger spac-
ing is less than the chip duration, performance degrades due
to the increase in the amount of correlation between total
interference. However, if the number of rake fingers is en-
larged with narrower finger spacing over the full range of the
delay spread, the receiver may overcome this degradation by
collecting more energy [12]. Based on the above, Kostic and
Pavlovic [31] proposed a sub-chip resolution rake receiver
for DS/SS communication systems. This invention resolved
multipath components spaced closer than a chip interval al-
lowing the detection of multipaths spaced closer than the
inverse of their bandwidth. In that implementation, the esti-
mator utilized a constrained iterative deconvolution tech-
nique based on the projection onto convex sets (POCS)
method [32]. In a matched filter embodiment, the delay be-
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Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1
tween any two sequential taps was set lower than the chip
duration.
In fact, the non-uniform finger assignment schemes are
very popular in the scientific and patent literature. For exam-
ple, in [12], optimum finger positions were determined by
the joint maximization of the sum of squares of average re-
ceived power in each finger and minimization of the sum of
squares of correlation between each pair of fingers. The
authors in [20] set the finger spacing less than the chip dura-
tion and enhanced receiver performance by using a combin-
ing rule based on ML criterion. An embodiment in which
fingers were locked on the strongest multipath components
on the basis of their instantaneous or the average power was
proposed in [33]. Recently, a rake receiver that receives sig-
nal from two or more antennas was proposed [34]. This re-
ceiver comprised a despreading unit that was adapted to allo-
cate rake fingers to a number of delay positions. Finger allo-
cation was determined from a delay position unit which es-
timated optimum delays by using direction-of-arrival (DOA)
[35] and channel dispersion information.
Usually, a rake receiver comprises a matched filter for
the processing of the received spread spectrum signal. How-
ever, the receiver in [36] included not one but three matched
filters. The first two filters were matched to the spreading
codes of the pilot and signal data while the third one esti-
mated the channel frequency response and combined the
received data signals from different paths prior decision es-
timation. In the proposed embodiment, the filters were Fast
Fourier Transformation (FFT) ones [37]. The receiver could
be used in both the uplink and downlink channels. In the first
case, it employed a multi-stage parallel interference cancella-
tion process to remove multiple access interference. In the
downlink operation, it firstly estimated the interference of a
pilot signal and then subtracted it from the received signal
prior data detection.
Patent application US20030103556A1 [38] proposes a
rake receiver that shares resources between demodulating
branches without using extra hardware in its fingers. In a
first embodiment, time deskew buffers [39] that storage the
recovered symbols are shared between the demodulating
fingers; in a second one, not only the buffers but also a phase
compensator are shared. In the first case, the required mem-
ory area is decreased to approximately the inverse of the
number of the demodulating fingers; in the second embodi-
ment, receiver size is further decreased. Compared to con-
ventional rake structures, the proposed receiver uses less
circuitry and has smaller size.
An adaptive multimode receiver that employs dynamic
pilot signal searching and multipath reception and combining
capability is presented in [40]. The receiver includes a net-
work interface, several adaptive multimode fingers and a
multimode processor. In a first stage, the fingers and the
processor respond to a first mode signal and configure a path
reception functional mode. In a second stage, the fingers are
responsive to a second mode signal and configure a searcher
functional mode providing the receiver with acquisition, traf-
fic and idle modes. This receiver supports both downlink and
uplink signal reception.
Konstantinos B. Baltzis
Lin [41] suggested a rake receiver that comprised a mul-
tiplexer, a searcher, two switch fabrics, several fingers, a
combiner, a decoder, a channel estimator and a rake finger
controller. The number of rake fingers that were assigned for
processing multipaths was determined dynamically. In order
to reduce system complexity and increase system perform-
ance, the fingers generated a search request each time a link
was established. This search responded to a specific antenna
for which the quality of the output signal was adequate; the
searcher might serve multiple base station antennas also.
The idea of a rake reception method that produces a sub-
set of channel estimates from a set of received signal paths
and chooses, in accordance with at least one criterion, the
best signal paths only from these estimates is discussed in
[42]. In an embodiment, the author suggested the limitation
of the average remaining uncaptured signal energy as a best-
signal-path selection criterion. The method suits better for
units with limited processing resources, e.g. mobile termi-
nals, which operate in rich fading environments.
The invention in [43] uses signal impairment correlations
for the generation of rake combining weights and SIR esti-
mates. This idea was initially suggested by Bottomley et al.
in 2000 [25, 44]. In that receiver, the so-called generalized
rake (G-RAKE), fingers positions were determined from the
maximization of the decision statistic’s SNR using ML
principles. The set of delays that optimized the performance
criterion was obtained from a search in a window of potential
delays that spanned from several chip periods before the first
arriving multipath component to several chip periods after
the last one. A simpler strategy suggested the positioning of
a subset only of the fingers on the multipaths to collect en-
ergy while the remaining ones were placed based on the
strongest taps of the inverse channel filter so as to suppress
interference (for example, these fingers could be placed as
mirrors to the rest). With this placement, the receiver ap-
proximated inverse channel filtering, thereby cancelling the
noise coloration caused by the channel and achieving partial
interference cancellation. It has to be noticed that the G-
RAKE receiver technology has been incorporated in U350
and U360 HSDPA/EDGE3 Ericsson mobile platforms [45].
In a recent invention [46], an adaptive G-RAKE has been
proposed. In that receiver, fingers positions were selected
from a candidate set by using a maximal-weight criterion and
weight computation included estimation of an impairment
covariance matrix using a parametric approach. The G-
RAKE in [47] uses a subset of the available fingers to de-
modulate the incoming multipaths. The rest of them are lo-
cated in the vicinity of the multipath center at a resolution
finer than a chip period and they are utilized for optimal fin-
ger placement and weight estimation. Dynamic allocation of
fingers is employed in [48] also. This G-RAKE places a sub-
set of its fingers according to their signal strength and the
rest of them on the basis of the estimated SIR at the com-
biner output. Patent US 7688881B2 [49] suggests a sophisti-
cated G-RAKE design in which the determination of im-
pairment correlations between the delays of interest is based
on the generation of kernel functions as samples of a net
channel response. This response is derived from the received






























































3
The acronyms HSDPA and EDGE stand for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access
and Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution, respectively.
The Rake Receiver Principle
signal that is taken at well defined chip sampling phases for
delays within the set of the delays of interest. In this em-
bodiment, an impairment correlation estimation circuit is
configured to obtain correlation estimates by convolving
each kernel function with itself and with each of the rest. The
convolutions can be performed in the frequency domain via
FFTs or through manipulation of the kernel functions to
form interleaved, usually zero padded, functions. In another
G-RAKE proposal [50], the receiver utilizes a square-root
covariance matrix that represents impairment and data co-
variance for the communication channel. In this implementa-
tion, symbol detection uses weights calculated from the
aforementioned covariance matrix and a net channel re-
sponse. The calculation of a reconstructed version of the
desired signal from the detected symbols allows the genera-
tion of an updated communication signal by subtracting this
reconstructed signal from the communication signal and the
covariance matrix update. An interesting method for the re-
duction of computational complexity of the G-RAKE re-
ceiver was also suggested in [51]. The proposed method
simplifies the calculations for pre-whitening by using two (or
more) signals with two (or more) antennas. The method es-
timates and formulates in a matrix form the correlation effect
of the antennas. The derived matrix is used to generate an
uncorrelated received signal matrix; the inverse of this ma-
trix is used to pre-whiten the noise. A G-RAKE receiver for
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems is proposed
in [52]. In this embodiment, the intermediate combining
weights are determined on the basis of a simplified impair-
ment correlation representation that excludes channel reuse
cross-stream interference. The same weights are also used in
reporting channel quality information for one or more nodes
of the MIMO operation providing a computationally efficient
and robust basis for computing final combining weights that
consider channel reuse cross-stream interference. According
to the inventors, their receiver reduces the severity of the
problems that arise from the impairments correlations due to
the cross-stream interference produced from the channel
reuse.
In a new type of generalized rake receivers, the paramet-
ric G-RAKEs, the impairment correlations are decomposed
into constituent elements and then modeled. The structure of
the modeled terms is known while the short-term impairment
correlations can be measured from a set of despread pilot
values. As a result, the impairment correlation estimation
task is reduced to the determination of the appropriate model
fitting parameters, known as scaling parameters. However,
the strong dependence of the scaling parameters on the total
energy per chip period and the thermal noise makes difficult
the appropriate update of their values, especially in high data
rate systems. An invention that tries to give a solution in this
problem was proposed in [53]. In this receiver, the modeled
impairment correlations that are used to generate impairment
correlation estimates for combining weight computation are
estimated on a transmission interval basis. As such, the in-
terval-to-interval changes in the signal conditions do not
influence the estimation of the scaling parameters.
The G-RAKE receiver estimates the impairments cross-
correlations of the received multipaths and using them gen-
erates the combining weights to provide colored noise sup-
pression. However, below certain received signal qualities or
Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1 59
above certain received signal spreading factor, colored inter-
ference suppression does not improve system performance.
In this case, simpler strategies can be followed. A low-
complexity receiver that selectively operates with or without
colored interference suppression depending on current oper-
ating conditions was proposed in [54]. In the first case, the
receiver generates the output signals from a set of fingers
signals by combining some of the output estimates; in the
second case, it generates them from a set of fingers signals
based on channel estimates only.
Kang [55] invented a rake receiver which includes a
searcher for checking the intensity levels of the received
signals, detecting the valid paths through which signals with
intensity levels above a predetermined level are received and
outputting information about these paths. The fingers that
correspond to the valid paths are selected from a controller.
The receiver is suitable for mobile terminals due to its en-
hanced ability for power consumption reduction.
The receiver in [56] comprises a demodulator which is
adapted to receive and process one or more input samples
that correspond to the same finger during a single clock pe-
riod. This structure is also adapted for each finger to accu-
mulate multiple processed input samples, form symbols and
provide them for all fingers. In fact, this method replaces the
physical finger instances with simplified time-multiplexed
fingers that process each path component during a different
processing cycle. As a result, the fingers share the shame
demodulating circuit that reduces noticeably receiver com-
plexity,
In the femtocell environment [1], the limited number of
multipaths and the terminals’ low mobility and speed allow
the utilization of rake receivers with a small number of fin-
gers without fine finger tracking. In this case, the coarse tim-
ing search process usually introduces a sampling error. In
order to overcome this, Muirhead [57] suggested a rake re-
ceiver with multiple rake fingers assigned to the same path at
a granularity of less than one chip. These fingers provide
additional energy for others that are sub-optimally sampled.
Preferably, the embodiment comprises a coarse timing
searcher that identifies signal paths by detecting two signal
peaks in each received multipath component.
A high-order rake receiver that mitigates the impact of
Doppler frequency shift [58] is proposed in [59]. In this em-
bodiment, rake fingers have two blocks. The first block sub-
tracts the slowly varying phase and frequency signal compo-
nents by removing a phase and a portion of the signal fre-
quency component. The remaining frequency variation is
removed in the second block. This structure is a second-
order receiver; however, for higher-order receiver diversity
this process can be repeatedly extended. It has to be noticed
that each finger can be configured to account for different
Doppler shift on the communications paths. According to the
authors’ claims, the proposed receiver is mostly suitable for
systems that experience significant Doppler frequency shift
such as systems where the transmitter travels with high
speeds, e.g. a jet fighter. In another invention [60], the im-
pact of Doppler shift is reduced by using a compensator in
each finger instead of using only one compensator (a con-
trolled oscillator in a feedback loop, for example) in the re-
ceiver. The compensators are implemented either in hard-
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Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1
ware or in software but hybrid solutions are also feasible. In
general, a compensator comprises a filter, an amplitude nor-
malizer and two arithmetical modules that multiply input
signals with conjugated previous inputs and output symbols
with previous outputs.
Recently, McPherson [61] proposed a rake receiver that
determines symbol values by detecting signal peak locations
in the fingers. Each finger includes one or more despreaders
for despreading time-staggered versions of the signal at the
receiver front-end and a frequency corrector downstream
with a phase locked loop (PLL) [62]. The last module oper-
ates at a rate lower than the signal rate and it is usually im-
plemented by a microprocessor. Symbols are detected by
despreading time-staggered versions of the received signal at
its rate and performing frequency correction after despread-
ing using the PLL. Optionally, each finger includes a control
and a data output path for outputting control and data and a
buffer upstream from the despreader for buffering the time-
staggered versions of the received signal. The data output
path may further include a phase adjust module which is
coupled to the control output path so as to correct symbol
rate phase differences between control and data symbols.
3.2. Rake Diversity and (W)CDMA Communication Sys-
tems
The first popular wireless communication system that
used the spread spectrum technology was the IS-95. This 2G
standard was formally adopted by the U.S. Telecommunica-
tion Industry Association (TIA) in 1993 and revised, with
minor improvements, in 1995 [63]. In IS-95, both base sta-
tion and mobile receivers used rake reception. In the base
station, the receiver usually included four or five fingers and
combined their outputs non-coherently; on the other hand,
the mobile receiver comprised a three-finger rake and per-
formed coherent demodulation [8]. The application of
CDMA technology in second generation communication
systems showed [64] that CDMA not only did not perform as
well as was originally promised, but also provided perform-
ance inferior to other digital technologies such as time divi-
sion multiple access. Despite this failure, a significant frac-
tion of the industry appeared to be committed to pursuing
variations of CDMA to future applications. In fact, 3G and
third generation and beyond (B3G) mobile systems use
WCDMA as multiple access technique and employ coherent
rake reception in both forward and reverse link [13,65]. Im-
portant inventions related to rake reception in 2G, 3G and
B3G systems follow.
In a practical CDMA system, we usually employ both
antenna and rake diversity. In [66], for example, the mobile
unit has two antennas. The received signal at the second an-
tenna is delayed by one or more chip periods and the signals
from the two antennas are combined in a summer and fed the
rake receiver input. However, when we detect multipath en-
ergy to a point where much of the received signal energy in
the assigned rake fingers is not accounted, this signal is ig-
nored. In other inventions [67-69], the reception unit com-
prises not only two antennas but two rake receivers also. In
[67], the interference that is correlated between the fingers in
the first rake with the fingers in the second rake is minimized
with respect to the desired signal by optimally combining the
Konstantinos B. Baltzis
signals at each finger output. Then, the optimum combining
coefficients are calculated from the fading coefficient vector
and the autocorrelation matrix of the received, or alterna-
tively, the noise plus interference, signal for each pair of
fingers. The rake receivers in [68] are coupled to each of the
antennas. In this invention, the interference that is correlated
between a finger associated with the first antenna and a fin-
ger associated with the second antenna is minimized with
respect to the desired signal by optimally combining all fin-
gers signals using MRC. In [69], the first rake receiver tar-
gets in channel coefficients estimation while the second one
produces the desired data sequence. The receiver further
comprises a space time transmit diversity (STTD) derotator
[70] that processes the received signals from the two anten-
nas in two consecutive symbol periods. The signal at the
derotator’s input is formed by the combination of the outputs
of the two rake receivers and the conjugated channel estima-
tions from the antennas. These components are linearly com-
bined to achieve sufficient statistics for a decision to be
made. The symbol sequence that is obtained from the derota-
tor is down-sampled by a factor of two; in this case, one
sample is taken while the second is discarded.
In the published patent and scientific literature, we find
several studies that discuss the reduction of power consump-
tion in wireless receivers. In fact, this is a very important
requirement towards enhancing system performance, espe-
cially in mobile terminals. Typical rake receiver implementa-
tions that successfully reduce power consumption have al-
ready been presented in the previous subsection. This issue
has been also addressed in network level; see, for example,
[71-73]. A mobile terminal that operates in the idle mode
must be able to receive incoming and support outgoing calls
while moving between adjacent cells. In this case, most of
the power is consumed during the acquisition process. An
invention that reduces power consumption during acquisition
is suggested in [71]. In the proposed embodiment, the incom-
ing baseband signals feed a matched filter that is driven by a
supply voltage control. The rake fingers despread the incom-
ing signal components only when an electric power calcula-
tion circuit detects that the filter output exceeds a predeter-
mined threshold. The reduction of consumed power is due to
the fact that the matched filter works intermittently and the
correlator tracks and receives signals only after the acquisi-
tion is performed. According to the inventors, the use of a
matched filter, a sample and hold circuit, a multiplier and an
adder, prior to the rake fingers, reduces not only power con-
sumption but also the acquisition time. The reduction of
power consumption when a mobile terminal operates in the
idle mode is also addressed in [72]. In this embodiment, Jep-
sen proposed that some of the rake fingers of a mobile re-
ceiver that are not used for the reception of paging informa-
tion can be used for the monitoring of the neighboring cells.
This can be achieved by a variety of methods; for example,
monitoring can be performed during the regular reception of
paging information between the reception of relevant paging
parts or in one power-up and power-down cycle when mo-
bile operation employs a periodic paging reception cycle.
The monitoring of neighboring cells during the reception of
the paging blocks reduces noticeably the total power-up time
and the power consumption. In [73], the mobile terminal
comprises an environmental variation estimator. This estima-
The Rake Receiver Principle
tor is connected to the rake searcher and provides an estimate
of the rate at which the mobile environment changes. By
providing this estimate, the duty cycle of the searcher can be
optimized reducing the overall power consumption. The
authors of this invention suggest the utilization of this esti-
mator in channel tracking also.
In cellular CDMA networks, the base stations usually
transmit a pilot signal with a known bit sequence on a pilot
channel so as the mobile terminal to determine the distortion
level in the traffic channel. A drawback of this method is the
estimation error due to the simultaneous reception of signals
from a plurality of base stations. A method that partially
solves this problem was proposed in [74]. In that method, an
estimate for the traffic channel amplitude was generated
based on a comparison with received pilot signals for each
channel of the rake receiver. The generated estimates
weighted the incoming signals prior to their combination
with weight signals in other channels. The receiver in [75]
comprises two parallel connected rake receivers that receive
the same signal. The delays of the fingers of the first rake
receiver are matched to a propagation path delay. The fingers
of the second rake produce an estimate of the multipath in-
terference generated by each finger in the first rake. Then,
the estimated multipaths are scaled and subtracted from the
first rake so as to reduce multipath interference. A proper
adjustment of the scaling coefficients reduces multipath in-
terference.
The aforementioned inventions were developed for sec-
ond generation wireless communications systems. In contrast
to them, WCDMA systems support services with different
traffic requirements. In a WCDMA receiver embodiment
[76], two paths, a high-rate and a low-rate one are employed.
The first path despreads multi-rate physical channels with
variable spreading factor while the second one despreads
physical channels with fixed spreading factor. The signal in
the high-rate path is resolved by high-rate rake fingers that
multiply symbols with channel estimation; then, a combiner
combines the multipath components. The low-rate path com-
prises low-rate fingers. In this case, a processor performs
channel estimation and coherently combines the calculated
estimates with the fingers outputs.
In the previous subsection, we have extensively dis-
cussed generalized rake reception. In [77], Fulghum and
Cairns suggested that the G-RAKE receivers for HSDPA
systems could be configured to determine a traffic-to-pilot
gain scaling parameter as part of the impairment correlation
estimation and the combining weights generation processes.
By this way, the receiver circuit accounts effectively for gain
differences between the pilot and the traffic channels of the
transmitted WCDMA signals. According to the two inven-
tors, the accounting of this difference enables proper de-
modulation of traffic signals such as quadrature amplitude
modulated (QAM) ones.
Patent US7787522B2 [78] proposes a diversity reception
scheme that comprises a rake receiver, a code correlator and
a multi-code joint detector. In this implementation, the rake
receiver despreads the received signals using selected
spreading codes and separates them into two or more output
signals and the code correlator generates cross-correlations
between the aforementioned spreading codes. Then, the joint
Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1 61
detector jointly detects the transmitted symbols by using the
rake combining weights which have been calculated using a
noise covariance matrix, the signals at the rake receiver out-
put and the generated cross-correlations. At the final stage,
the receiver performs trellis decoding [79]. This decoder
calculates branch metrics associated with the state transitions
by using the obtained symbols at the rake outputs and the
cross-correlations between the spreading codes.
The authors in [80] proposed a processing method of the
Dedicated Pilot (DP) and Transmit Power Control (TPC) bits
[81] in WCDMA rake receivers. First, Dedicated Pilot
Channel (DPCH) symbols are received, quantized and com-
pensated. Next, we process the manipulated DPCH symbols
are processed on the basis of the DPCH slot format and pro-
duce DPCH pilot symbols in a common format. Finally, the
DP and TPC bits are processed either in parallel using sepa-
rate processing branches or in series by applying timing con-
trol to common processing modules.
Despite its complexity, blind spreading factor detection
was usually applied in 2G systems. For example, in an IS-95
application [82], a Viterbi decoder ran for each rate or
spreading factor hypothesis and formulated the decision met-
rics. However, a major drawback of these techniques that
makes their use ineffective or even impractical in high data
rate WCDMA systems is their significant latency. A novel
solution for WCDMA communications has been recently
provided. Wang [83] proposed two embodiments that use
rake receivers and perform blind spreading factor detection.
In the first, the received signal is despread by using an initial
spreading factor smaller than the smallest possible one that
could be used to spread the signal. The despread values are
then combined using combining weights and an actual
spreading factor is estimated based on a most likely data bit
repetition factor. Then, the detected data symbol repletion
factor is used to combine the partially combined signal val-
ues prior to decoding. In the second proposal, the received
signal is despread by using a spreading factor smaller than
the smallest possible one that is used to spread the signal.
Next, a rake receiver combines the weights of the received
signal and a combiner generates the partially despread and
combined signal using the calculated weights. The receiver
further includes a blind spreading factor detector that esti-
mates the actual spreading factor of the signal based on a
most likely data bit repetition factor.
The inventions in [84, 85] were proposed to mitigate the
effect of inter-cell and intra-cell interference in WCDMA
wireless systems. Patent application US20110151888A1 [84]
provides a programmable inter-cell and intra-cell interfer-
ence suppression module for WCDMA communication sys-
tems. In the proposed method, the received signal is utilized
for the estimation of channel state information (CSI) that
includes estimates of both channel coefficients and rake fin-
gers positions. The estimated CSI and a delayed version of
the received signal produce a reduced interference signal that
is suitably formatted for post-processing. The receiver in
[85] is designed and/or adapted through the repeated use of
symbol-estimate weighting, subtractive cancellation with a
stabilizing step-size and mixed-decision symbol estimates. It
comprises a front-end processor that includes a combiner, a
despreader and a symbol estimator. The front-wend proces-
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Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1
sor may also include a synthesizer that synthesizes estimated
rake finger signals and a subtraction module for performing
per-antenna subtraction of a sum of the synthesized signals
and produce an error signal. The receiver may be imple-
mented either explicitly in software or programmed hard-
ware or implicitly in standard rake-based hardware at the
finger level or at the user or subchannel symbol level, that is,
outside the rake. The proposed invention can be used not
only in wireless communications but also in signal process-
ing.
In [86], an interference cancelling receiver combines data
from multiple paths after aligning them to transmitter timing
and then uses a rake receiver to compute symbol estimates.
These estimates are used for the generation of interference
estimates which are combined after re-aligning the interfer-
ence estimates to receiver timing. For each segment of inter-
ference cancelled data, two or more segments of symbol es-
timates are computed. The proposed intervention can be real-
ized in both hardware and software. Hardware embodiments
may include Application Specific Integrated Circuits
(ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), Digital
Signal Processors (DSPs) [87] and/or other circuitry while
software and firmware embodiments are implemented in
programming or assembly languages.
The receiver in [88] comprises a searcher, a rake re-
ceiver, circuits for the detection of the maximum signal en-
ergy among individual multipaths in a cluster, a module for
the computation of the time-of-arrival (ToA) [89] of the in-
coming multipaths and a cluster tracker that computes timing
adjustment signal based on the power level of the received
signal components. The cluster tracker comprises timing
control circuitry for the computation of a timing reference
signal based on a timing adjustment signal, a code generator
for the generation of a code based on a start time associated
with the received signal cluster and a code identification
module. The proposed receiver receives a portion of the in-
coming multipaths at time instants within a specific duration.
The authors claim that their invention provides improved
management, controlling and combination of the received
multipaths and reduces the processing overhead in fingers
managing. Also, they support that the receiver mitigates the
impact of finger merging, that is, the case in which a com-
mon individual path signal is assigned to more than one fin-
gers due to paths that are closely spaced together4.
Last but not least, we present a spread spectrum MIMO
transceiver that employs rake diversity in signal reception
[95]. In this system, the transmission antennas are spaced by
at least one-quarter wavelength (a lower spacing degrades
significantly system performance) and preferably as far apart
as possible. In the receiver, the antennas are coupled to fil-
ters which are matched to the code sequences of the trans-
mitted signals and a rake receiver combines the detected
spread spectrum signals and the detected multipaths in con-
junction with a space-diversity combiner. System perform-
ance is further enhanced with erasure decoding [96].






























































4
In this case, rake fingers can not track the individual multipath components when they
move away from each other. As a result, the receiver loses any benefits obtained from
the assignment of multiple fingers to process the received signal (for a detailed discus-
sion on finger merging and prevention methods, see [90-94]).
Konstantinos B. Baltzis
3.3. The Rake Receiver in UWB Systems
Ultra-wideband is a promising technology for wireless
communications that supports applications ranging from
video streaming to sensor networks and utilizes radio signals
with a bandwidth which range from hundreds of megahertz
up to several gigahertz [97]. A major difference between
UWB and narrowband communication systems resides in the
characteristics of the propagation medium. In particular, the
UWB channel is a highly frequency-selective fading one
because the bandwidth of an ultra-wideband signal is much
wider than the channel coherence bandwidth. Aside from
this, the clustering effect [98] that is common in UWB sig-
nals results in high-resolution arrival times of the multipaths
[99].
In an UWB system, the special needs for effective cap-
ture of multipath energy impose several technical and im-
plementation difficulties that make conventional rake receiv-
ers ineffective or even impractical [100, 101]. In fact, the
most important limiting factors in conventional rake recep-
tion are the rapid fall of the incremental improvement of the
diversity gain with the number of fingers and the tradeoff
between system performance and parameters such as hard-
ware complexity, computational requirements and power
consumption [102, 103]. However, rake diversity remains an
option for UWB communications [104], especially for im-
pulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) systems [105]. In IR-
UWB radio, the rake receiver’s ability to exploit multipath
diversity, its relatively low complexity compared to other
UWB receivers, the multipath diversity inherent in the IR
signals and the high processing gain makes rake reception an
effective solution, especially in low-data-rate systems [106].
In the following paragraphs, selected patents and scientific
articles show the application range and the merits of the use
of rake diversity in UWB communications.
In an interesting, mainly due to its simplicity, proposal
[107], a rake receiver with single bit detection is optimized
for UWB signal reception. In this invention, channel estima-
tion is achieved by calculating the probability density func-
tion (PDF) of a single bit quantizer output instead of using a
complex analog amplitude scheme that involves multi-bit
detector quantization with increased computational complex-
ity. In addition to this, the use of a single quantization bit
simplifies signal processing and reduces cost implementation
and required processing power. It has to be noticed that sin-
gle bit quantization incurs a penalty of about 2dB compared
to an ideal infinite resolution analog to digital (A/D) conver-
tor. However, this loss is easily recovered because the
method allows a significant number of rake fingers while
maintaining reasonable power consumption. In the proposed
embodiment, the rake receiver has two stages, a serial and a
parallel one; the single bit quantizer is connected at the first
stage.
The authors in [108] proposed a pilot-channel-assisted
log-likelihood ratio SC rake for long-range low-rate UWB
applications. The receiver uses CSI and constructs an effec-
tive pilot channel that instantaneously updates the channel
information which is required from the rake receiver. The
pilot and data channels are generated from quadrature sinusoi-
dal bursts with Gaussian envelope and they are transmitted in
parallel. The joint maximization of the SNR at the receiver
The Rake Receiver Principle
output and minimization of the mean square error (MSE)
[24] of channel estimation optimizes system parameters. The
limited number of fingers balances the suboptimal perform-
ance of the receiver.
The coherent detection scheme in [109] employed hy-
brid-selection/maximal-ratio combining (H-S/MRC) diver-
sity [110, 111], also known as selective-rake reception, and
used pilot aided channel estimation information. In the pro-
posed embodiments, a detect-and-forward UWB relay was
equipped with one or two antennas. In the first case, the relay
operates either as a receiver or as a transmitter and the relay-
ing strategy is as follows: In a first time slot, the relay re-
ceives the transmitted signal but the receiver is in idle mode;
then, in a second time slot, the relay transmits the detected
data to the receiver. In this case, the relay exploits multipath
diversity by using the selective-rake scheme and reduces
path losses (if it is placed in a correct position). In the two-
antenna relay system, the relay not only exploits multipath
diversity but also performs spatial diversity reception [7] and
spatial transmit diversity [112].
The authors in [113] proposed a novel digital modulation
scheme for DS/SS UWB communications, the co-called
quadrature binary orthogonal keying (QBOK), and a rake
receiver with analog emphasis based on a six-port circuit
[114-116]. QBOK differs from conventional M-ary bior-
thogonal keying (MBOK) [117] in that the second compo-
nent of the signal space is derived from the modulation of the
selected code using the Hilbert transform [118] of the modu-
lating impulse signal. The receiver comprises a six-port net-
work with two input ports (received signal and local oscilla-
tor) and four output ports which are linear combinations of
the inputs. The outputs signals are additively mixed in zero-
bias schottky diodes [119] and combined in pairs so as to
obtain the I-Q channels. In the proposed embodiment, corre-
lation does not involve a local oscillator but it is imple-
mented by four integrators which are cascaded after the di-
odes. Significant advantages of this architecture are the pas-
sive mixing that it uses one less template generator because
the second component of the signal space is generated with
hybrid couplers inside the six-port network.
Patent US7649962B2 [120] proposes a DS/SS UWB re-
ceiver that comprises an A/D converter, a correlator, a rake
receiver, an equalizer and a Viterbi decoder. In this embodi-
ment, the rake receiver includes a channel estimator, a track-
ing module, two switches and multiple demodulators with
parallel processing structure. The channel estimator assumes
negligible Doppler frequency spread and long channel co-
herence time and estimates CSI during a preamble transfer
period. The tracking module detects the received signal
variations and then adjusts and stores the estimated synchro-
nization position values. The first switch forwards to the
tracking module the value of either the A/D converter or the
correlator while the second one works in a similar manner
but forwards the selected value to the demodulators. By us-
ing the output of the second switch, the estimated channel
estimation and the synchronization position value, the de-
modulators demodulate the received signals. The receiver
further comprises three buffers, a register and a summer. The
first buffer supplies the switches with the A/D converter out-
put, the second buffer stores the channel estimation value
Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1 63
and the third one forwards the output of the second switch to
the demodulators. The register stores the synchronization
position value and the summer adds the demodulators’ out-
puts and forwards the result to the equalizer when exceeds a
predefined threshold. Finally, the equalizer removes in-
tersymbol interference, calculates symbol decision values
and feeds the Viterbi decoder.
An IR-UWB receiver that minimizes energy consump-
tion by finding the optimum packet length and operating
with the optimum number of rake fingers is proposed in
[121]. The receiver is able to choose between coherent and
noncoherent demodulation after the signal passes through the
rake fingers and an MRC combiner. In the first case, the re-
ceived signal feeds a matched filter which is configured from
a template pulse. In noncoherent detection, the received sig-
nal is either correlated with the previously received signal or
it is simply multiplied by itself (envelope detection). The
authors further suggest a differential modulation scheme that
cooperates with both detection schemes. For example, a dif-
ferential binary phase shift keying (DBPSK) modulated sig-
nal can be noncoherently detected by a correlation with the
previously received signal so that only the difference be-
tween the two signals appear at the A/D converter output. In
coherent detection, each DBPSK modulated signal can be
detected individually through a matched filter; then, the dif-
ference between two adjacent bits is measured in the digital
domain. Coherent detection requires that a pulse generator, a
synchronizer and a channel estimator are active during the
template pulse generation. However, in noncoherent detec-
tion, these three units are not used due to the absence of tem-
plate pulses (in general, coherent detection yields an im-
proved performance but at the cost of hardware complexity
and power consumption). In the two detection schemes, both
hard and soft decision combining can be used. The first con-
sumes less energy at the cost of lower performance. On the
other hand, soft decision combining methods demand a high-
resolution A/D converter and additional memory units.
By using higher order metrics of the generalized Gaus-
sian distribution approximation [122], Beaulieu and Shao
proposed two novel receiver architectures for time-hopping
(TH) ultra-wideband systems [123]. The key idea behind that
invention was the selection of a parameter p and the genera-
tion of a first set of partial statistics by using p so as to mod-
ify the exponential order of the noise plus multiple access
interference PDF approximation. The first receiver uses a
constant detection threshold while the second one introduces
a second degree of freedom in the p-order metric and sets the
detection threshold adaptively. In the same patent, the inven-
tors propose a rake receiver for TH UWB systems. This re-
ceiver adopts the aforementioned p-order metrics in each of
its fingers and calculates the decision variable using MRC.
Finally, the “zonal” UWB receiver [124] has been pro-
posed for TH UWB signals and for signals that originally
had pulses with duration less than one nsec, signal band-
width greater than 500 MHz or signal bandwidth greater than
15% of the carrier frequency. In order to produce partial sta-
tistics for an information bit, the receiver performs correla-
tions in the received signal. Next, each partial statistic is
transformed into a new one on the basis of its initial value
and either keeps its value or sets it to zero. The new partial
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Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1
statistics are accumulated and produce the decision statistics
upon which a decision is made. In an alternative, the new
partial statistics keep their initial values or they are weighted
versions of them. In the same published patent, the inventors
have proposed an advanced rake receiver that comprised a
zonal UWB receiver in each finger.
3.4. Rake Reception and Channel Estimation
The propagation medium has a profound impact on the
performance of wireless communication systems. Knowl-
edge of channel parameters is requisite for the operation and
improved performance of wireless receivers. However, CSI
is not a priori known at the receiver, which poses significant
constraints and difficulties in wireless systems design, im-
plementation and optimization. In practice, channel identifi-
cation includes the estimation of CSI so as to determine cer-
tain channel parameters. Among different techniques, rake
diversity is employed in channel estimation quite often. In
the following paragraphs, we discuss methods and appara-
tuses for wireless channel estimation based on rake recep-
tion.
In general, a path searcher calculates delay profile data
from the baseband signal(s) and stores them so as to be
equalized at a specific time interval, e.g. one symbol period,
of the signal(s). Therefore, it requires a great number of path
search sample points that correspond to oversampling times
in one symbol. In diversity systems, this number further in-
creases resulting in a significant enlargement of the circuit
scale. Considering the above, Saito et al. [125] invented a
path search method for wireless CDMA communication sys-
tems. The proposed invention offered improved tracking
accuracy without significant cost in hardware complexity
and power consumption. In this method, the searcher detects
an effective path from the demodulated baseband signals and
obtains the exact timing at which fingers receive the incom-
ing multipaths. In order to do so, it calculates the delay pro-
file data and detects their peak value. In the proposed em-
bodiment, the path searcher comprises a window controller,
a sampling circuit, a spreading code generator, several corre-
lators, a peak detector, an assignment controller and a mem-
ory unit. The window controller defines a search range for
calculating the delay profile data and splits in two parts.
Next, it sets the center of the first window at the peak posi-
tion of the delay profile obtained from the peek detector. The
controller further sets two independent windows out of the
range of the first one and selects them alternately. The sam-
pling circuit samples the baseband signal while the spreading
code generator produces the desired code. Then, the correla-
tors correlate the sampled signals and the generated spread-
ing code within the range of the two windows. The distribu-
tion of the calculated correlation values represents the delay
profile of the reception signal. The peak detector compares
the calculated correlation values, which are stored in the
memory unit, and detects the peaks with values that exceed a
predetermined threshold. At the same time, it obtains infor-
mation about the timing of the peak appearances and sup-
plies it to the assignment controller which, in turn, forwards
the timing information to the rake fingers. The proposed
method consumes less power compared to conventional path
search techniques because it uses only a subset of the corre-
lators during path searching. Also, the alternate use of the
Konstantinos B. Baltzis
search windows reduces memory size due to the smaller
amount of information that is stored during correlation calcu-
lations.
Recently, Zhang and Lin [126] suggested a searching
method and apparatus with reduced requirements on storage
area. In their proposal, the path searcher comprised a multi-
plier, an adder and two buffers, the first for storing a copy of
the local sequence and the second for storing data of the
sampled signal. The first buffer was longer than the local
sequence while the length of the second buffer was kn/T s
with k the number of the sampled bits, n the length of the
local sequence (in bits) and Ts the sampling interval meas-
ured in chips. In this method, the received signal was ini-
tially sampled and quantized. Next, the local sequence was
hold in the first buffer (the sequence was repeated until the
storage area was filled) and a part of the received data was
hold in the second one. Then, the data in the second buffer
were incrementally moved against the data in the first buffer
with increment equal to the sample interval. In each step, the
bits in the second buffer were multiplied with the corre-
sponding bits in the first buffer. In the end, the results of all
the multiplications were added and stored. In a second em-
bodiment, the length of the first buffer was set to w–1+n bits,
with w the number of the performed correlations. The
authors incorporated the proposed path searcher in a
WCDMA receiver that further included a rake receiver, a
radio frequency receiver and an A/D combiner.
In mobile terminals, channel estimation usually involves
the utilization of a known bit sequence that is either time
multiplexed with the information (pilot symbols) or transmit-
ted as a separate pilot channel [12]. The main drawback of
the first approach is the insufficiency of the pilot symbols to
provide accurate information in a single time slot. Thus, we
usually prefer the second method but neither this approach
provides an exact measurement of the physical transmission
channel. For example, a conventional channel estimation
method on the basis of a common pilot channel ignores the
transmission power regulation [127-129] causing losses in
the processing of the combined signal. The invention in
[130] faces this problem successfully. This method calcu-
lates one or more path weights using CSI obtained from the
common pilot channel. Next, the same path weights are mul-
tiplied with a correction factor that depends on the ratio of
two gain estimations, a data-channel-specific to a pilot-
channel-based one. As a result, the new path weights take
into account the influence of the transmission power regula-
tion in the data channel. Power regulation is normally carried
out on a time slot basis. An advantage of the aforementioned
method is that it allows the generation of correctly weighted
data symbols over the length of a code word, even when this
word has been transmitted in time slots with different power
levels.
Patent US7286593B1 [131] provides a channel estimator
for the weighting coefficient of a rake finger. The proposed
method is a three-step process. First, we set the parameters
of a filter that minimizes the MSE of channel estimation.
Under the assumption of Jake’s spectrum [132] for each
Doppler frequency, we average the channel estimation MSE
spectrum over all the frequencies. In the second step, we
calculate a low-complexity filter by performing a discrete-
The Rake Receiver Principle
time approximation of the obtained transfer function using
the minimum MSE (MMSE) criterion [24]. In a proposed
embodiment, this filter is designed as a cascade of a 3-tap
finite impulse response (FIR) filter and a single pole infinite
impulse response (IIR) filter [133]. In the last step, we im-
plement a fixed-point realization of the filter. In order to
minimize SNR degradation in underflow or overflow condi-
tions, the inventors suggested that both data and filter coeffi-
cients should be quantizied with a 16-bit resolution.
Zhao et al. proposed [134] a method that dynamically
adjusts the average interval of channel estimation (a fixed
average interval based method is impractical for moving
terminals because it does not track their speed). First, the
method estimates a Doppler shift by using level crossing rate
(LCR) [3] information for a set of mobile speeds. Then, it
determines the optimal average interval of channel estima-
tion based on its relationship with the existing Doppler shift
and finally, it adjusts dynamically the average interval of
channel estimation. A proposed apparatus comprises a chan-
nel estimator, a valid/strongest finger selection module, a
rake receiver, an LCR detection and Doppler shift estimation
module, a Gaussian noise power estimator, a strongest path
signal power estimator and an optimal average interval cal-
culator. The channel estimator receives sampled baseband
signals, correlates them so as to estimate instantaneous chan-
nel parameters and further calculates a sliding average value
of channel estimation; the valid/strongest finger selection
module uses this value and selects two arriving paths, an
effective signal and a strongest signal one; the rake receiver
demodulates and combines the sampled baseband signals and
estimates the transmitted data symbols using hard-decision
decoding; the LCR detection and Doppler shift estimation
module calculates the average signal level from the selected
effective signal and strongest signal arriving paths and esti-
mates the LCR; the Gaussian noise power estimator calcu-
lates the noise power in the strongest signal arriving path
based on the demodulation output and the estimated trans-
mitted data symbols; the strongest path signal power estima-
tor estimates the power of the strongest path using the calcu-
lated sliding average channel estimation value; finally, the
optimal average interval calculator selects the optimal aver-
age interval on the basis of the detected LCR and the calcu-
lated noise and strongest path power estimation and adjusts
dynamically the average interval length of channel estima-
tion.
A joint channel estimation and decoding scheme for
wireless communications is described in [135]. The proposed
apparatus refines iteratively the channel estimate based on
the soft output of a decoder and forwards it to the demodula-
tor which, in turn, sends its soft output to a Turbo decoder
[79] with improved performance. The Turbo decoder com-
putes log-likelihood ratios of both systematic and parity bits.
In order to accomplish this, the authors suggest two methods.
In the first method, the decoder performs soft encoding of
the extrinsic information of the systematic bits that are ob-
tained from the decoder and computes the log-likelihood
ratio of the parity bits. In the second one, the extrinsic infor-
mation of parity bits is calculated by comparing the prob-
abilities of state transitions when the chosen parity bit is zero
and one. Then, the soft information of the coded bits is con-
verted by a soft modulator into probabilities of modulation
Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1 65
symbols. We assume that a symbol is the transmitted one if it
seems reliable according to the probabilities. Channel esti-
mation is performed by using a great number of such sym-
bols. The aforementioned process is repeated a given number
of times. The channel estimates are either refined on a per-
finger basis followed by rake combining or by estimating the
noisy channel at the rake receiver output. The first method
gives more accurate results but at the cost of memory space
and hardware complexity
The power delay profile (PDP) represents the average
received power as a function of the multipath delay and
equals to the autocorrelation of the channel impulse response
at given multipath delay and time instant [3, 12, 24]. Its es-
timation requires the evaluation of the channel impulse re-
sponse over the whole range of possible delays. Then, the
estimated peak locations are reported to the (rake) receiver as
delay estimates. However, this full path searching method is
impractical in real systems due to the increased processing
and power consumption requirements. On the other hand,
averaging-based approaches provide a significant improve-
ment in the robustness of a delay estimator because they
maintain the full averaged delay profile for the whole range
of the possible path delays. A drawback of these methods is
that factors such as the associated storage space and the data
transfer requirements may cause several problems, especially
to systems with limited memory and processing capacity. A
solution was given in [136] by proposing a method that
avoids the disadvantages of instantaneous delay profile based
methods without the need for extensive additional storage
and computational resources that are required by the general
averaged delay profile based techniques. In a proposed em-
bodiment, the calculation of an averaged delay profile fol-
lows the collection of individual multipath components. This
profile is obtained from a number of repetitively calculated
instantaneous delay profiles and it is limited to delay values
within a subset of the range of all possible ones. Next, the
delay of each multipath is estimated from the average delay
profile but only a portion of them is used for rake combining.
Finally, the center position of the region around each indi-
vidual multipath component, the location of its neighboring
multipaths and the delay profile magnitudes for each delay
value situated in the region, are stored. In another invention
[137], a selectively controllable coherent accumulation mod-
ule generates power delay profiles. Then, a post processing
unit passes threshold qualified magnitude approximation
values and PDP positions to a rake receiver which deter-
mines the received signal paths. According to its inventors, a
major benefit of the method is the selectively controlled pro-
duction of PDPs.
In the HSDPA receiver proposed in [138], channel esti-
mation is obtained by averaging neighboring Common Pilot
Channel (CPICH) [139] symbols. In this implementation, the
buffer size of the fingers outputs limits the range of channel
estimation delay. However, the accuracy of channel estima-
tion increases noticeably with this range, or, equivalently,
with the number of the averaged CPICH symbols. A solution
to this problem is the application of an adaptive delay which
depends on the processing gain. Also, a buffer designed for
high-rate data affords large estimation delay for low-rate
data transmission. It has to be noticed, that the channel esti-
mation process can be replaced by a FIR filter with coeffi-
66


Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1
cients which are programmable to match different fading
rates such as a Wiener filter [140] that assumes known fad-
ing channel spectrum.
The last invention involves generalized rake reception.
Cairns [141] presented a method in which path delay infor-
mation is used to determine a set of processing rake finger
delays upon which finger allocation is based. First, the re-
ceiver estimates the net channel coefficients which represent
the overall channel response including the transmitter and
receiver pulse shaping filters [142]. Next, it calculates the
medium channel coefficients which correspond to the im-
pulse response of the radio channel. In turn, the updated net
channel coefficients that are used in the generation of the
interference matrix are obtained from the calculated medium
channel coefficients. In a proposed embodiment, the G-
RAKE comprises a path searcher, a processing delay deter-
mination module and a signal despreader. The first two units
generate the processing delays (see, for example, [143, 144])
and forward them to the signal despreader. The despreader
has some of its fingers placed at the previously selected de-
lays and the rest of them positioned at delays such as off-
path ones so as to improve its interference suppression capa-
bility. It has to be noticed that the processing delay determi-
nation module assumes that path searcher has perfect CSI.
As a result, the noise that is associated with the net channel
estimates can be reduced by firstly generating medium chan-
nel coefficients from measurements of the net channel coef-
ficients and then regenerating the net coefficients by using
pulse shape information.
3.5. Miscellaneous Methods and Applications in Wireless
Communications
In this paper, we presented recent advances and selected
methods and techniques for rake reception and its application
in spread spectrum communications, ultra-wideband systems
and radio channel estimation. In the following paragraphs, a
short description of selected patents that cannot be easily
classified in the previous categories is given.
Chin and Peng [145] proposed an apparatus for sequence
detection in wireless systems. An on-off keying (OOK) de-
tector, e.g. [146], is positioned at a rake receiver’s front-end
and detects non-coherently, in order to reduce system com-
plexity, the received code sequence. At its output, a soft de-
spreader, e.g. a binary sequence one [8,147], despreads the
received energy and feeds a rake receiver. In order to achieve
a trade-off between performance and complexity, the number
of rake fingers should be smaller than the sampling periods
determined by the channel delay spread. The combination of
the binary sequence soft despreader and the rake combiner
provides a noticeable multipath diversity gain that enables
the receiver to mitigate the impact of inter-pulse interference.
Also, it has to be mentioned that the implementation cost of
this device is low because it does not require an extra timing
recovery circuit.
Rake diversity has also been proposed for the configura-
tion of spatially and/or polar antenna diversity systems in
mobile terminals [148]. In comparison with other methods,
the proposed technique configures simultaneously two or
more antennas. In this embodiment, the antennas’ signals are
properly combined and forwarded to a rake receiver. The
Konstantinos B. Baltzis
antennas are coupled with the receiver with impedance
matching networks [149] that comprise inductive compo-
nents and capacitors or, more preferably, tunable inductive
components and ferroelectric capacitors [150]. The proposed
invention further includes a resistor-inductor-capacitor
(RLC) filter that adjusts the phase and/or the magnitude of
the received signals. Filter components are ferroelectric or
fixed ones (in the second case, they are properly switched to
adjust the filter characteristics). A potential application of the
method is in a two-antenna system in which each antenna is
connected to a different receiver. In another aspect, we in-
clude in the mobile terminal a module that is configured to
detect jamming attacks. When jamming is detected, the
phase and/or the magnitude of the received signals are prop-
erly adjusted to improve signal quality.
An objective quality metric for wireless communication
systems is the SIR. In fact, SIR is the best link quality metric
for spread spectrum systems because it is directly coupled
with the achieved throughput [151]. A novel SIR estimation
method that includes the benefits of interference suppression
without requiring the computation of specific interference
suppression elements is suggested in [152]. The proposed
method estimates the signal-to-interference ratio at a rake
receiver front-end during a time interval determined from
previous estimations. In particular, the method estimates an
SIR value and then applies an offset which was calculated in
a previous time interval and generates a second SIR estimate.
The new estimate provides a more accurate channel feedback
without incurring the time delay that is normally associated
with the final estimate used in the processing of the received
signal.
In order to enhance the performance of a rake receiver,
we often use a whitening filter at its front-end. Patent
US7711035 [153] discusses the design and practical imple-
mentation of such a filter. In this embodiment, the frequency
domain representation of the filter depends on a scaling fac-
tor. This factor is related to the ratio of the total base station
power to the power spectral density of inter-cell interference
plus noise and it is usually calculated by using a parametric
model of the received signal impairment correlations. In sev-
eral cases, this parametric model comprises a noise and an
interference impairment term that are properly scaled by two
fitting parameters. Alternatively, the scaling factor can be
directly estimated.
The apparatus proposed in [154] estimates and corrects
baseband frequency errors at the receiver input. In order to
calculate the finger weights, channel estimation is performed
on particular multipath components assigned to one or more
rake fingers. The computed weights are forwarded to the
frequency error estimator which generates new weights
based on at least one of the old weights and calculates the
frequency error signal. This signal is processed by a control-
ler which produces a frequency adjustment signal. The last is
fed into a numerically controlled oscillator which, in turn,
generates a rotating phasor. Next, a multiplier multiplies the
derived rotating phase with the sample data stream and pro-
duces frequency corrected samples that forwards to the
channel estimator and the rake combiner. In a proposed em-
bodiment, the frequency error estimator comprises a tap ex-
traction circuit, a delay unit, a conjugate generator, a multi-
The Rake Receiver Principle
plier, an arctangent operator, a filter and a comparator. The
tap extraction circuit extracts and averages the finger weights
that are obtained from the channel estimator; the delay unit
delays the average finger weight by an appropriate time in-
terval; the conjugate generator produces the conjugate of the
average finger weight; the multiplier multiplies the conjugate
of the average finger weight with the delayed average finger
weight and generates a signal that represents the phase dif-
ference between them; the arctangent operator measures the
phase difference between the conjugate of the average finger
weight and the delayed average finger weight; the filter pro-
duces the estimated frequency error signal by averaging the
measured phase difference; finally, the comparator compares
the estimated frequency error with the phase difference be-
tween the conjugate of the average finger weight and the
delayed average finger weight (multiplier output) and based
on a threshold signal selectively sends a hold signal to the
filter. This last step determines the update frequency of the
estimated frequency error signal. Once a frequency error is
estimated, a controller processes the estimated frequency
error signal and produces a frequency adjustment signal that
forwards to an oscillator which, in turn, generates a rotating
phasor. The multiplication of this phasor with the sample
data stream generates frequency corrected samples that fed
the rake combiner.
Finally, we present a hybrid receiver that incorporates
equalization and rake diversity [155]. In order to improve
signal reception, a controller selects between the equalizer
and the rake receiver. For example, equalization performs
better than rake reception when signal propagates through
channels with large dispersion but the rake receiver is a bet-
ter solution for mobiles moving at high speeds. In a proposed
embodiment, the controller uses information obtained from
pilot channels. The application of an efficient algorithm, e.g.
a high speed packet data channel scheduling algorithm [156],
provides the controller with the required information about
the incoming signals. This information allows the controller
to identify an appropriate pilot signal prior to the reception
of the desired one. Then, the equalizer processes the pilot
channel data and determines an error energy value. The same
process is repeated with the rake receiver. The receiver with
the lower error energy is finally selected for signal detection.
CURRENT AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
It is generally acceptable that a successful way to handle
signal interference is through diversity as this mitigates fad-
ing and improves the overall SNR by many decibels. Among
different kinds of diversity, the rake diversity which targets
to the separation and appropriate recombination of time-
shifted delays of the transmitted signals has successfully
been applied in wireless communications for several years.
The popularity of the technique increased in the early 1990s
with the emergence of CDMA spread spectrum architectures
for 2G systems. A few years later, the commercial deploy-
ment of 3G systems that solely adopted spread spectrum
technology increased drastically the interest for advanced
and sophisticated rake designs. As a result, a remarkable
number of innovative structures and applications of rake
receivers has appeared. In this paper, selected and recent
contributions in the area in the form of patents and scientific
articles have been presented.
Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1 67
Nowadays, the main competitors for the fourth genera-
tion (4G) wireless communications are the Orthogonal Fre-
quency Division Multiplexing Access (OFDMA) [157,158]
and the Multicarrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) [159] (despite
their interest, it is not clear yet that access schemes such as
the Interleaved Frequency Division Multiple Access (IF-
DMA), the Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) and the Or-
thogonal Frequency & Code Division Multiplexing
(OFCDM) [160-162] would address the challenges facing
the field and offer a significant competitive advantage in the
market). Apart from this, we should not forget that rake re-
ception is mainly used in DS/SS systems. It has also to be
noticed that current receiver architectures based on rake di-
versity are effective for speeds up to a few Mbps which are
significant lower that the requirements of fourth generation
communications. Clearly, the above make the future of rake
diversity systems, at least to the extent we know, a little du-
bious. On the other hand, advanced hybrid reception
schemes that comprise both interference cancellation and
generalized rake reception may look suitable for high-speed
applications [163]. However, to the best of the author’s
knowledge, in recent commercial 4G wireless systems5 [167,
168], rake diversity has not yet been employed. In fact, this
author believes that the future of rake diversity in fourth
generation communications is strictly related to the multiple
access technique(s) that will be finally adopted. Nowadays, it
seems that in frequency division multiplexing schemes rake
reception is not employed.
In this paper, we reviewed and discussed methods, appa-
ratuses and applications of rake diversity for wireless com-
munication systems. However, wireless communications is
not the only area in which rake diversity principles are ap-
plied. In recent years, much interest has been shown in
acoustic underwater communications (AUW). In fact, we
have witnessed a noticeable increase in research and devel-
opment with applications that broad from military context,
e.g. submarine communications, towards commercial ones
such as communications with autonomous underwater vehi-
cles and robots, environmental monitoring and remotely con-
trol systems [169]. In a wireless system, data are transmitted
by means of electromagnetic waves but in underwater com-
munications we mainly use acoustic waves [170]. The
propagation characteristics of the latter differ significantly
from those of radio waves; their unique characteristics such
as the limited and distance-dependent bandwidth, the high
propagation delay and the noise and time-varying multipath
fading require efficient and reliable receivers. Several recent
studies, e.g. [171-179], indentify potential opportunities for
applying rake diversity in AUW communications.
This author believes that, in the near future, topics which
will illustrate research trends in rake diversity and its appli-
cations include, but are not limited to, MC-CDMA receivers,
ultra-wideband reception, channel estimation and underwater
communications. The utilization of advanced rake receivers
than compromise performance and hardware and/or compu-






























































5
According to the initial classifications of the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU) [164], no commercial 4G networks should exist [165]. However, these criteria
was changed almost a year ago so as to include standards and/or technologies that can
be considered as “forerunners” to 4G networks or that showed “a substantial level of
improvement in performance and capabilities” compared to the existing third genera-
tion systems [166].
68


Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering, 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1
tational complexity still remains a critical issue, especially
since the increase in mobility and traffic demands is evident.
Receivers that perform generalized rake diversity and hybrid
devices including reconfigurable hardware architectures
[180-182] are topics that will definitely interest industry and
academia in the next few years. Last but not least, energy
efficiency is another important issue that will be studied in
the following years since the battery life of mobile terminals,
despite the improvements in the area [183-187], is still lim-
ited.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers
for their critical comments and insightful suggestions that
resulted in the improvement of this paper. He also thanks the
editor(s) for the helpful comments and support during the
review process.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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